


Things You Said With No Space Between Us

by deandratb



Series: Distant Horizons and Familiar Shores [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, references to amy gardner and jack reese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fic, excerpts that could be expanded to individual stories. Timeline spans pre-series to "Inauguration: Over There."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things You Said With No Space Between Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greatestheights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatestheights/gifts).



> Disclaimed. Prompt: **Things You Said With No Space Between Us.**

**I. “I missed you.”**

Her first day back from Wisconsin tires her out, and she has to head home after work instead of tagging along to dinner. The last thing she expects later that night is Josh showing up at her apartment, bringing food to her.

“I couldn’t convince anybody else to settle for Chinese,” he apologizes as he comes in and makes himself at home. “They’re obsessed with that burger place Carol’s been raving about.”

“Okay…” She lowers herself onto the couch next to him. “But what are **you** doing here?”

He scratches the back of his neck, a Josh tell for discomfort. “I wasn’t sure if you had dinner plans,” he replies with a shrug. “What with you being Tiny Tim now.”

Donna stares at him, forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You mean you were worried I couldn’t have my own Chinese delivered by making a two-minute phone call?”

Suddenly he is busy setting out the cartons of food, easily avoiding the question. “I got you that chicken thing you like, and the chow mein for me, plus lots of egg rolls and fried rice, because there’s no such thing as too much Chinese food.”

“Josh?”

“I missed you.” He’s still turned away from her, and she’s half-convinced she heard him wrong, until he sits back and hands her a carton and fork. His face has that little-boy vulnerability to it, the same look she saw when he came to her apartment drunk after he lost his father.

_You didn’t lose me,_ she wants to tell him. Instead she takes the sesame chicken and offers him a hesitant smile. She’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the verbal jabs about how stupid she was to leave in the first place. But he’s here, handing her napkins, and looking at her like she’s the answer to a question nobody ever asked him before.

“You didn’t want a burger?”

“I’m glad you came back,” he admits, answering her real question. Then his eyes dart away and he digs into his food, unable to risk more than that.

****

**II. “It hurts.”**

With C-SPAN murmuring quietly in the background, Josh looks at her through his drug haze and offers his best attempt at a charming smile. “Extra pillow?”

His mussed hair and hopeful expression make her smile as she brings it over and carefully adds it to the arrangement behind him. Josh grimaces when she leans back, grabbing her hand before she can step away.

“It hurts,” he tells her, eyes fixed on her face.

She nods and resists the urge to pull her hand away. Their relationship is defined as much by what they carefully avoid than by what they actually do or say. But he’s vulnerable now, without his usual defenses, and she can withstand the slips that have become more common. _He won’t remember them anyway._

“I know,” she finally replies. “It’s going to hurt for a while.”

“No,” he argues, lifting her hand up and pressing it lightly to his chest, just beside his bandages.

“It hurts. I don’t mean the bullet,” he adds, his slightly unfocused eyes pleading with her to understand. And she does.

He’s not lucid enough to fully process what happened yet, but it’s starting to leak back in–the larger picture, pain beyond his body desperately trying to survive.

_It’ll be hell for him, she thinks, as his hand lays on hers near the heart that refused to stop beating._

“I know,” she tells him again. Her other hand rises to rest on his cheek, just for a moment. Just long enough to meet him on the other side of that uncrossable line.

****

**III. “I wasn’t angry at you.”**

The fountain fills the silence between them while they wait for Cliff to bring back her journal. When Josh speaks, it startles her.

“I wasn’t angry at you.”

Her hollow laugh is barely audible over the bubbling water. “Yes, you were.”

“No. I was scared for you. I’ve seen what happens when these guys find an opening. It’s always the people with the least power they go after, and they’re the ones who pay, even when they’re not the ones who should.”

Donna turns to look at him. “But nobody should have to pay. The President didn’t lie, nobody else even knew. This is a witchhunt.”

“So?” He raises his eyebrows, pushed past his usual level of guilt and frustration with the system. “Tell that to the staffers I had to fire when Lillienfield kickstarted those stupid drug interviews. Tell that to Charlie, who’s looking at a lifetime of lawyer fees because he’s within earshot of the Oval Office.”

She slumps, shaking her head. “This isn’t the world we should live in.”

“Well, it’s all we’ve got.” He closes the space between them, tugging her gently into the curve of his arm as he leans back against the bench.

She feels him breathe. Quickly in, slowly out. Like Josh himself, it’s more comforting than it should be.

“Anyway, I wasn’t mad,” he reiterates. “At least, not about that.”

****

**IV. “You really do look good tonight.”**

She’s only a little tipsy from the wine when Josh asks her to dance. Mortification over her slip with the First Lady cleared her head up almost entirely, but Donna still stumbles over her response.

“You–do I what?”

“Wanna dance? I’m bored.”

She frowns. “Won’t your girlfriend mind?”

Josh blinks. “What, you mean Amy? Of course not.” He glances over, finds her among the gliding couples. “She’s dancing with Steve from Treasury. Why would she care if I do?”

“I meant with me.”

His face doesn’t give away the fact that one of Amy’s first questions to him involved Donna; his voice is as light and easygoing as ever. “She won’t mind. And she’s not my girlfriend.”

Donna’s not dumb, though–and if she hasn’t already learned from her sources at the Danish cart that Amy is naturally suspicious, she’s definitely aware of the murmured rumors that circulate about them. The look she gives him is knowing, and skeptical.

“Amy won’t care,” Josh declares, taking her hand and pulling her loosely into a waltz. “She understands.”

Donna can’t tell if he means that Amy believes there’s nothing between them, or that she understands **exactly** what’s between them. But she lets him lead, pretending things are simple. _They’re just staffers, sharing a friendly dance at the First Lady’s birthday party. It’s no different from all the people around them, enjoying the camaraderie and the music._

“Amy’s the one who made sure I kept checking in on your thing tonight,” Josh adds thoughtfully, and she can’t keep pretending. _It is different._ He’s already having trouble splitting his attention between them; with Amy so perceptive and competitive, Donna isn’t looking forward to the inevitable boundary issues. 

“Thanks again for making sure that got worked out,” she says with a grateful smile, stepping back from his grasp. “I’m going to see if that cute guy from HUD is still here.”

_Josh is too used to having her everywhere he needs her, all the time. And she doesn’t know how to step back, because he **does need her.** All the time._

“You really do look good tonight,” he tells her quietly, holding onto her hand for a fraction of a second too long before she slips away.

Then he lets her go.

****

**V. “It was a jerk move.”**

Around them, the conversation flows as though they aren’t there. The men of the West Wing, Donna thinks with amusement, all dressed up like they could be the stars of a calendar…crammed into this cab just to back Josh up. They’re completely ridiculous, really. And incredibly sweet. 

“It was a jerk move.”

Josh murmurs the words in her ear as the taxi winds its way back to the ball. She cringes, not sure what to say. There’s only so much apologizing a person can do before it stops sounding sincere. 

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” she whispers back. “For you, or Leo, or the President. You have to believe that.”

She feels Josh shake his head behind her, then nudge the back of her shoulder. “I didn’t mean you. Jack saying what he did, putting you on the spot…nobody who cares about you does something like that.”

Donna shrugs, and he shifts to steady her against the movement. “It’s not like he was the love of my life,” she replies, and the pragmatism in her voice should be a comfort to him–his idealistic assistant finally learning to protect herself from jerks and losers. 

Instead, something about the simple acceptance in her tone is heartbreaking. 

He rests his forehead against the bared skin between her shoulderblades as they approach the drop off zone, and refuses to ask the obvious question. _If Jack wasn’t, who is?_

Hoping that Donna will let his invasion of her space pass by without comment, the way she usually does, Josh closes his eyes. He listens to her talk to Charlie about Zoey until they arrive, and tries to ignore the obvious answer. 

_They’re both getting really good at that._


End file.
